


Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter

by middlemarch



Series: Mercy March [5]
Category: Little Women - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott, Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Epistolary, F/M, Family, Female Friendship, Gen, Marriage, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Post-Civil War, transitions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-07-21 17:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7396099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo is at Plumfield and Mary in Boston-- their letters do not have far to travel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

March 18, 1873  
Dear Polly,

Please forgive me for the lengthy time since I last wrote & etc, etc. We needn’t stand on such ceremony with each other, I think and hope you feel the same, just as I wouldn’t bring a calling card to dear Meg’s for her tray. It seems an age and somehow the blink of an eye since last we sat together in your parlor. Now that I am responsible for Plumfield, I appreciate anew what a comfortable sitting room you made it, how full of books I wanted to read, yet so pleasingly arranged—there was always something to rest one’s eye upon that was lovely or interesting or intricate. Amy has that same skill, of making a room becoming and easy, but she does lean rather heavily upon paintings. I do like a great, thick musty volume, its cover travel-worn—which is all to the good, as books are not in short supply in my new home. You know how Aunt March left all of Plumfield to me, inclusive of her library, and I have unearthed a gem here and there, and as for the rest, well, they make my eye happy and there is nothing to me like the smell of a library. Of course, my Fritz all but stuffed his trunks with books when he left Germany and I can’t be certain if he has even more than three waistcoats! There are so many surprises I have found since becoming a wife—I had never imagined taking my husband to task for forgetting to give me his mending or being woken by the toppling of a great tower of books, which has happened not once, nor twice but three times in the past week alone. Did you find it thus, Polly, when you married? I suppose I mean when you married Dr. Jed, for I must expect you faced such revelations when you were first a bride.

This letter is fearfully out of order, isn’t it? I have not asked after your husband or children though I’m certain you know I send only my best love to all of them and a great smacking kiss to the little ones from Aunt Jo. How goes it at the hospital, the clinic for Dr. Jed? Are his experiments proceeding apace? And Dr. Harris, that dear man with his intriguing theories! Perhaps he has yet found a competent housekeeper? I’m not sure you can manage his buttons with all the rest you have to attend to, though I cannot imagine you will stop making him give you his coat when you see it trailing threads… And Miss Watson—you must write me of her and let her know I much desire a correspondence and perhaps she may even send us a student or two for our school. As I suspected, Fritz is completely happy with Plumfield, as president-professor-and-occasional-chief-bottle-washer, and we would welcome more young scholars in our midst. If the Aid Society finds the tuition too costly, please let me know and I will speak with Teddy. It seems since he married golden-haired Amy, everything else he touches turns to gold and he feels he cannot divest himself of the “filthy lucre” fast enough—I know he would be gratified to sponsor one of Miss Watson’s protégés, even if the child is not musical or artistic in any way. 

Let me see, I haven’t written yet of Meg, other than her front hall, what an oversight! She would be the first to expect it of me though, she has a long experience of my missteps and lack of politesse. But of course you know that already from your own acquaintance with her; I do so like to think of you writing each other, two of the best women I know and both so generous and loving to your harum-scarum Jo, only partially concealed in Mrs. Bhaer’s sober cloak and bonnet. Meg is well as are the children. I cannot think what the schoolroom would be without Demi and Daisy and Meg has said her own home is a bit more serene and restful for John and little Josy naps more easily without the noise of the twins in and out of the garden all day. She will not own it, but I think the quiet is good for Meg as well—she has had so little of it since the twins were born and even before, when she was a governess before her marriage. Now she may take an hour and spend it as she pleases—perhaps not as you or I would choose, but as she would. To wit, her garden has been glorious this season and I’ve never seen the like of the embroidery on Daisy’s collars or a boy of Demi’s age with so many monogrammed handkerchiefs. I must be a good aunt, so I do not tell her the uses Demi finds for them, but you can imagine the frogs he has swaddled and the caterpillars who had have such a lovely hammock. My parents do well, as always. My father’s chest has kept him a bit quiet lately, but his writing has not suffered and Marmee is the same Sun for our planets as ever—so warm and loving and mindful of the passage of our days. I shall never equal her.

I have hopes I may persuade Fritz the seaside will be all to the good for Franz and Emil this summer and then we may sit upon the shore with our parasols again and we will talk as we did before, your thoughtful advice sprinkled so judiciously amidst talk of novels and matters scientific or politic, the children’s little victories and your recounting of Dr. Jed’s good works and discoveries. I will not leap to jump up and join the children this time, though I will long to, as I have… expectations of my own now. Oh, Polly, now I must confess as I have nothing else to delay me and I hope quite sincerely you will not think any less of me, but I am not happy I am to be a mother. Even to write it, “to be a mother” gives me a pang but the whole together, the unhappiness linked to it and the clear admission, that is worse, like a great bolt that strikes me. For I know I should be pleased, I should be overjoyed to be so lately married, who never thought to be, and to be happily settled and now with the blessing of a child…but I am not. And you are the only one I feel I can tell this to, this secret within a secret, for who would understand? Who would not judge me? 

I have not told Fritz yet about the baby but I have spoken with Marmee. She knows a little of what is in my heart I suspect (will this be a gift I receive with the birth, to read everything in my child’s eyes, a compensation of sorts?) and she laid her hand on my cheek and said, “Dear Jo, how glad I am” and then she shortly turned the conversation and she suggested I write to you of my news “for I think our friend Mary may prove a confidante well-suited to you as you have been to her.” And then she called for tea and toast from Hannah and so aptly timed it was, for I had started feeling ill as I do quite often now. I must trust you as Marmee has directed me and so I will tell you what is in my heart.

Polly, it all feels too much, too soon—I am trapped now though I did not feel so before, when I only had to manage being Fritz’s Professorin and Franz and Emil’s Aunt Jo and Plumfield’s Mrs. Bhaer, old Mrs. March’s niece. What is become of Jo? What will become of her? I am happy with my husband, truly so happy, but there are days, times when I still feel most bitterly that Aunt March took Amy with her to Europe, hours when I long for the bustle of New York outside my window and not a grassy verge in need of mowing, the murmur only of bees and not the chatter in the boarding house halls and parlor. I think of those weeks I spent in your home, the lectures I attended, the frank talk at Miss Watson’s and also the small society we made, you and I, Dr. Jed and Dr. Harris, as you poured out the coffee, that convivial spirit, and I wish for it still. I feel I am trying, have been trying, to make the small world around me so much larger, with just enough room for me to spread out me wings if I am not meant to fly, and now I am clipped and jessed. 

For I know my duty and I think I will find it in my heart to love this baby when it arrives, but I am not sure who that Jo must be, how she will come to be. How will I put aside all the desires of my heart? I am wicked perhaps—Amy would scratch out my eyes if she knew, after her sad losses, and Meg, Meg would only look at me a little blankly or she would see just another failing. She would forgive me but she would not know why it was called for. And sweet Beth would pat my hand and start working me a pair of slippers and a little white bonnet, both embroidered with sweet peas and snapdragons. She at least would not judge me, though she would not understand either, as she never traveled far into womanhood before she traveled where I could not follow. 

Polly, I do not see how I can tell Fritz this news, this great and transfiguring news, without joy in my heart and I so not see how I can tell him without falling into his arms and crying. He will want to comfort me but he will not know how and I fear neither Erasmus nor Dickens, a cup of tea or a cuddle, all his preferred strategies, none will do for this. I want to see the smile on his face, I want so much to please him, to be a good wife but in yet one more aspect of our marriage, I feel incompetent, a fraud. He has not minded so much, that I can only cook him simple food and hardly anything he misses from home, or that my mending is serviceable but crooked, the shelves a little dusty, my collar and cuffs perpetually askew. But in this I must be sincere and adept at once; I cannot tell him the truth and I cannot lie. I would say I could hardly sleep for turning it round in my head, but I have found my energy sapped and sweet Morpheus has been my only surcease from the illness plaguing me morning and night. 

Even now, I must close this letter, though there is more I could write, should write and would, if my eyes were not so heavy. I imagine you have read this while the children nap or Daniel at least works at his book of flowers, quite the young botanist I recall from your last letter. It gives my weary head a little peace to think of you reading this scrawl and nodding your head, considering your response, which I eagerly await—I have lived in your house and so I feel I know a little more of your nature and I think you will have some wisdom to impart, calm, practical Polly! but you will find a way to write me your smile too and something in place of the cup of tea you would hand me, the clasp of your hand as you do so. I know you will not be speechless at least, that is never you, and I will trust in you and Marmee’s guidance and God’s goodness. 

Most fondly,  
“Jo” Josephine March Bhaer


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary replies.

March 23, 1873  
Dear Jo,

I hope you will excuse my delay in responding, since your letter did arrive promptly, not having so very far to travel from its home to Boston. You may imagine the various interruptions that beset me in my attempt to sit and write you a response—not only Mrs. Hutchinson’s necessary questions about the running of the household and the children’s various demands but even my dear husband, eager to tell me of a great success at the hospital. To give him due credit, when I explained I sought a quiet half-hour to write to you, he immediately acceded and immersed himself in the late Mr. Dickens’s Edwin Drood, which he is determined to find a solution to. I have not said anything else of your letter to him, only that it arrived and that I wished very much to reply; you need have no concern that I have broken your confidence on this matter, nor shall I ever, my dearest friend Jo.

Dearest Jo—that is who you are and who you shall always be! You write so vividly of your distress and I wish I might rise up from my chair across and sit right beside you on the sofa and take your hand in mine in consolation. I must first write, very clearly and you must listen to me now without any argument—your feelings are entirely natural and as such, godly, as Nature is God’s manifestation. I will not say every woman feels as you do, but a great many do, though they are not so brave as you are, to articulate their emotions and make such an effort to address them. How many children are born to mothers who never wished them borne, nor even yet conceived? How sorry a start in life! I know that will not be the outcome for your child, Jo, for you have ever faced just what disturbs you boldly and with a faith in your heavenly Father than you may not mention but which guides you in every way. I would write to you of what is in your heart and what has been in my own even if these are not things generally spoken of. I cannot imagine that will trouble you very much; I hear in my memory your girlish voice crying out, “Christopher Columbus, Polly!” and I will continue…

When I first knew I carried Daniel, I did not feel as you do now, I honestly admit. I was so overtaken by delight and relief, as I had reason to fear I could not carry a child, might not even conceive and unlike the Biblical Sarah, there was no Hagar to come to my aid. You know my Jedediah well enough, albeit he remains Dr. Jed to you though you are now a wife and headmistress of a school and not only young Jo come to visit—Jedediah would have struggled to raise as his own a child he did not sire himself, at least, I think, the first child. Perhaps now, as he has been such a good father, he could take in as his own another not made from our marriage-bed—but then, never, though he could not admit it. To find I was with child and so quickly, so easily to have a family with the husband I thought I might never wed—it was a joy that overtook any fear, any incipient concern about what lay in store. Every pang and ache, every moment of feeling unwell I welcomed.

But Jo, Daniel came and then Timothy and we were so content-- when I knew I was with child again, when Timothy still woke me at night, every night, and their needs were so great, sometimes more than I felt I might manage—I did not rejoice. To tell you truly, neither did Jedediah. We were glad to be blessed with another child but we wished not then, not so soon… we had been married such a short time before Daniel was born and Timothy had come just as soon as we might have expected, but with Johnny, neither of us had thought it was possible for me bear another child so soon. I will not have you think we had a moment of perfect communion; I was afraid to tell him about our Jonathan and I could see how he tried to moderate his response, to match my own level of excitement and joy over the new child. My midwife, Mrs. Ballard, such a frown she had had when she confirmed my suspicions and I hated the dread we all shared—but we did, Jo. Jedediah worried for me so and I, I wished it hadn’t happened, that whatever night, whatever kiss I had returned that led to Johnny I had not given, had turned a cheek instead. 

It was not just that I felt overwhelmed; it was more than I wanted to manage and Jo—I had been Head Nurse for an entire hospital in Alexandria, and now I felt overmatched by a third child when other women raised eight, ten, twelve children. This time, I understood the word “confinement” in a way I never had before, though it was not the general usage. I had found a way, with Patsy and Mrs. Hutchins and cousin Esther, to care for the children and still be able to read, to keep up my correspondence, to complete the proofs I wished—the work Dr. Harris brought me from the mathematics department at Harvard. But with a third and so close to Timothy… I worried for all of us and I wished, I wished so much I had not quickened and the drag of the guilt was… immense. Jo, I felt I could not tell Reverend Abbott, that Jedediah would revile me, I was a terrible mother, even worse than after Daniel’s birth, when your own mother would tell you I fell apart—save that Margaret, your Marmee, is the best of women, the most compassionate… I will not say it was all misery and fear until Johnny was born—it was not, but there were many hard nights, nights I could not sleep or that I found Jedediah awake beside me, and all we could do was turn to each other and then our faith. It seems heresy to write it now, but Jo, it was not always enough in this day or that night, though now we have found our way through, we have discovered our necessary accommodations. Those night when it was not enough—not Jedediah’s attempts at consolation, not prayer or memory, I found I might get from one moment to the next calculating distance or angles or polynomials, solving equations or writing proofs in my mind and the salvation it offered was also the promise for what was to come, how I might cope.

You must know now, there are so many kinds of women. Some are so gratified by the domestic sphere, bearing and raising children and the management of the house. It is enough and more than enough. I feel our society deems them the true Woman and where does that leave the rest of us? For Jo, I think there are so many women who long for something else—it may be specific, like your writing or my mathematics, or simply a diffuse Other, something they have never been given a chance to identify, yet they hunger for it. I see them, as perhaps you have done, trying to satisfy themselves with their families or their church or even vanity, but the wrong cannot be made right by quantity alone. How unhappy they may be, seeking the key to their lock fruitlessly or furtively. Some find their way at last, when there is no baby left to cry for them in the night, or even when they are widowed and responsible only to themselves but some are confused, lost, soured or bitter or only feckless. It is hard, Jo, to be a woman grown and it have such confines placed upon you—harder still if, like we two, there has been the experience of the wider world and then to have it taken away… And yet, I think we have both chosen husbands who had gone out into the wide world and found us there and who also wish we might somehow still join them; I know Jedediah is the first to order a new German text for me or point out a lecture series we might attend. I think your Fritz wishes you to be headmistress and yet still find time for you to write, even if you may not retreat to your former garret, your basket of burnished apples and inquisitive Scabbers your only comrade. I think they are no happier than we at our comparative seclusion but the world changes more slowly than we might wish and our country is still healing after its bitter War.

I fear this letter is not the consolation I wish it to be and yet, perhaps, simply the echo of your ambivalence in my own voice may be enough to help you tolerate it. I never felt more alone than after Daniel was born, until your mother sat with me and spoke to me so kindly and reasonably… If I might distil her wisdom, I would say she spoke most of trust—in God, in my husband, in myself and I hope you will find it a comfort as I did. I think you must trust that what you feel is only that—neither wrong nor right, but only how it is with you. And then, I think you must lean on the vows you and your Fritz have made each other. You have promised him all of you and that means your fear and your grief and your frustration, not only your strength, happiness and talent. I have spent only a little time with Professor Bhaer and he is so very different from Jedediah but he did seem to be such a good companion to you, Jo. No one would meet him and picture a knight-errant, an ardent, tragic Tristan—but you do not want that. He has studied so comprehensively and traveled so far and made himself a father to his nephews when it must not have been convenient… I can only imagine he would want to share what is a burden to you now, that it might become a promise, then a gift. Perhaps he will not understand everything you feel, but I think he would listen, if he is the man you have written me of, and he would try very hard to find a way for you, for you both really. How can he be happy if you are not? If you two have not learned that lesson yet in your young marriage of old souls, I think you will very shortly. That recognition and that desire for communion, for understanding, that is what makes a marriage I think, not merely affection and admiration, the thrill in the starlight and the shadow, though they are components that strengthen the whole.

Has this helped you, Jo? Your mother was so much wiser when I needed her counsel. She needed far fewer words to soothe me and help me see where I had lost my bearings. But I think she would shake her head at both of us for feeling we fall short of her, as we are to be our own measure. I hope you will write me and tell me honestly how you do and not worry that I will judge or decry you. And I must add, as a former Head Nurse and a physician’s wife, do not discount the baffling, miraculous changes occurring within you and how they may affect all aspects of yourself—some of what troubles you may pass away without any tincture but time. If you have not started taking ginger and lemon, you may find them very helpful for the pangs you suffer and even that alone, that respite from illess, may be enough for you to revisit your feelings. We are such changeable creatures, we mortal men and women, I think it must interest God in His ineffable constancy to see how quickly we feel this and that, like Daniel’s fascination with the flutter of a butterfly’s wings or how the morning glory opens and closes every day. 

Write to me again, soon, dear friend, and let me know how you fare and if I have helped you. Ask me any question and I will try to answer—if I may say it myself, I do not have much in the fault of pride or self-importance, and I will do my utmost to help you. It will not cost me; what would would be to know you did not say something for fear or shame or guilt. Jedediah will say I make up for my humility with a great deal of bossiness and he would be right, I own, but sometimes it is what is called for. Please forgive me for not sharing more news of our household but I didn’t feel that was what you most desired to read. We are all well and happy and now I must end this, as Jedediah has cast Drood across the room and is nearly shouting at the publisher for allowing the unfinished story to be printed, though he knew well enough before he began it would all end in smoke and shadow. 

With sincerest friendship and amity,  
Polly von Olnhausen Foster


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter from Plumfield.

April 14, 1873  
Dear Polly,

I am so glad to be in receipt of your letter, dear friend, and I will not keep you in suspense—what a help it has been these past days to re-read your words and hear your voice, now earnest, now dry, just exactly what I need each time I seek it out! You are quite a prodigious letter writer, Polly, I positively quail before you and can only be thankful that you turn the majority of your clever and incisive mind towards mathematics and philosophy, else my own meager literary contributions would be overwhelmed by whatever you chose to produce and then Plumfield’s north chimney would never draw properly, as we cannot repair it until my “An Adverturess Abroad in Algiers” returns a fat check. In fact, I must confess I wonder you don’t solve Edwin Drood for poor Dr. Jed and put him out of his misery—yes, I laughed aloud as you intended when I read that and Fritz looked up from his dusty tome and smiled such a smile to hear glum Jo all giddy sunshine again. I have seen him wondering why I am so subdued but it is not his way to pry, only to look at me with his dark eyes and stroke his beard and sigh a little, Teutonically.

I did appreciate your vow of discretion, but really, Polly, it is unnecessary. I trust both you and Dr. Jed have only my best interests at heart and if you are moved to speak to your husband about my letter, do not hesitate. I hate to think I am creating a rift between two such dear people and it may be that you feel he would have some perspective to offer that would be a help. I don’t think I am being very vain to suggest I am something of a favorite of Dr. Jed’s and when he is not engaged in banter or consumed with his latest intellectual occupation, I’ve always found him to have such an easy way about him, especially for a man in conversation with women. Has he always been thus? He is not solemn like Fritz can be or calmly wise like my father, but he does listen more than the vast majority of men do and I’ve always liked how ready he is to admit when another has scored a point off him. Those months I stayed with you, I wished to achieve that success more than I was able but watching him speak with you or Dr. Harris was a surpassing delight—in fact, I think Dr. Jed often preferred to be caught out in some elaborate explanation as if he were teetering on a cliff and lo, you must run to rescue him from himself! His growls were comical when Dr. Harris would so neatly box him in, but what a fond, tender look he’d give you when one of your elegant explications or swift rebuttals knocked down his flawed argument. It was a gift for me to see such a different marriage than my parents’ could still be so happy, that conflict could be engaged in and even enjoyed before resolution without simply being avoided. 

I must not dilly-dally any further, for even such a paragon of patience as yourself must wonder if I have found some happiness and peace lately. The answer is typically Jo-ian, I suppose, an amalgam of yes, no and maybe in a sort of jumbled salad. Plumfield might be better called Gingerfield these days, for all the ginger tea, candied ginger and ginger cake I eat. Lemon has been less successful though I suspect I will hardly be able to look a gingerbread in the eye this Christmas. And yet, it was not the change in my diet or the spicy fragrance filling the whole house to the rafters that led to me telling Fritz my news, no, nothing so simple as that. Only three days ago, I fainted dead away and what a commotion it caused! Despite the years of practice in our amateur theatricals, I gather there was nothing elegant or romantic about it—I did not drift down like a lily so much a crumple like a puppet with its strings cut. What a flurry when I opened my eyes to see the housemaid waving her apron in my face and hollering for help as if the Four Horsemen were upon us! Somehow, I gathered myself and convinced her to stop her screeching before she took her turn and fainted herself. She managed to act as my crutch as I retired to my bedroom, hoping a rest would be enough, but I was then beset by such illness I had hardly had a basin in hand in time to prevent an awful mess. 

It was just after the third bout that Fritz burst into the room, nearly mad with worry after being alerted that I was at the verge of expiration and he must make haste! If my poor dear man had not been so frightened, it would have been an amusing scene— my hair had fallen down completely and I looked like one of Macbeth’s mad witches, complete with stinking cauldron, and poor Fritz, red as a devil, not even wearing his coat, his cravat flapping about. What Aunt March would have said! Such a stream of panicked German poured from him, I couldn’t find a way to stem the tide. It was as if the Danube had risen from its very banks and meant to deluge every city on its shore. After much hand-patting and hushing, he finally was seeming to calm and then I upset him all over again with the fourth return of my own upset. As soon as I could be left on the bed, he started walking to the door, calling for the doctor to be called “this very instant! _Jetzt sofor_ t!” and I could hardly make myself heard over him to tell him to stop. So of course, that was how I shared my news, blurting out “No, no doctor, you needn’t, it’s only the baby!” and I couldn’t say which of us was the more shocked, Polly, really, you could have knocked both of us over with a feather, with a feather to spare!

Friedrich came and sat beside me then, so carefully, and pushed the hanks of hair back from my face—his hands were trembling. “ _Wirklich und wahrhaftig, meine liebchen_?” was all he said and after my clumsy exclamation, it was all I could do to nod. I’d never before seen the expression he had then, like the wonder a child has first seeing the stars in the night sky but there was nothing child-like about it. I could tell he was so concerned for me, not just being ill, but that he knew how I might struggle with it and so he… contained everything he felt. It was not as if I was giving him a gift or making a dream come true, but I knew, I know, that it gave him an unqualified joy to know we would have a child together. I hadn’t thought of it till I sat to write to you, but that moment, that expression on Fritz’s face, was something only a wife and mother experiences—watching the realization on your husband’s face that he is to be a father when minutes before there was not even the slightest suspicion. A woman will always have a little worry, a little hope, there is never a time without the question beating in her heart but not a man. Perhaps it is wrong ( _pacem_ , Polly!) but that has been what I have loved most about this child—that look on Fritz’s face when he knew it was true and the new love I saw for me then. All he would do was hold my hand and stroke my cheek lightly and look at me; what could I do but throw myself into his arms then, my hair everywhere, such a horrid tangle, and he simply held me and said as if it were another wedding vow, “Only let me care for thee, my Jo, my Miss March with the most beautiful grey eyes, the loveliest mind.”

Well enough, then. Somehow, with hardly a minute to think, my wise professor had found just the thing to say to me, to make bearing this child not a burden for me alone but a worthy undertaking for our partnership. And because I often have only the merest shell of modest womanhood about me, I gave a great sniff and rubbed my face into his shirtsleeves and then hiccoughed—how quickly he reached for something, though there was not a basin at hand. He is not a saint and he looked greatly relieved when I told him I would not be unwell again and then, Polly, that man! He looked at me and there was a glint in his eye, an undoubted and incontrovertible glint, and what did he say? “Perhaps, _Liebchen_ , perhaps it might be an adventure?” He looked so pleased with himself then, so sure he had found the key, and because that was what he was proud of, how to make Jo a little easier with the upending news I ought to have told him all blushes and smiles, but was instead topsy-turvy Jo about it, because of that I laughed, a great, unladylike laugh, and then so did he and kissed me soundly.

So, I am happy at times now and the dread has receded a bit, but not entirely. The lure of an adventure helps but I can’t say there aren’t times when all I see are ominous clouds or worse, the sense of being locked away. Fritz knows about the baby and he knows that I’m not eager to knit or sew swaddling, though I couldn’t say he knows the depth of my concerns and I have not found the right words to convey it to him, despite my authorial aspirations. I cannot imagine how I will find time or the tranquility around me to search the storm within myself but I suppose I must ask Fritz for help and not try to manage it all alone—all that will yield is an enormous Jo-sized muddle, due by-and-by, to grow even more enormous. That, dear Polly, is the least of my concerns and I do take comfort, when I grow grim and grey and sour with myself, that at the very least I haven’t an ounce of vanity about any of this. I recall Meg told me how Sallie Moffat Copley cried at a tea for a solid quarter hour when she realized she wouldn’t be able to wear her favorite blue silk to a garden party due to her increasing dimensions; I don’t think I could have been as gracious as Meg, who patted her hand and spoke of Sallie’s lovely lace shawl and new bonnet. Can you imagine? Though, as I wish not to be as I am, perhaps Sallie does as well and was only overmatched…

It is so restful to write to you, Polly—I feel certain I may blather and yarn about and you will only laugh a little but still notice when there is something that needs attention. Perhaps this is a skill you honed as a Head Nurse? I find myself, some of these long afternoons when I am prostrated with fatigue but my mind is still eager and busy, I find I wonder if you miss nursing and running a hospital—or rather, I know that you do miss it, but I wonder how and why and how you manage it. I imagine you were quite commanding with a cape and a special little bonnet, alternately stern and sweet, but perhaps it was nothing like that. Father doesn’t speak much of his time as a chaplain during the War and Meg’s husband John only talks in abstractions about honor and justice and I know it cannot have been so idealistic. Indeed, whatever ideals I had as a girl have all tumbled quite to the ground and I am surrounded by empty pedestals; perhaps Amy will sculpt me an array of Muses to replace Love and Virtue and Bravery. It would suit her to a T, to work among the marble in a clean white smock over her lovely dress… Jo you would find as you expect, scribbling away, ink smudging every finger and likely the tip of my nose, papers scattered about and the sound of the children getting muddy in the yard. I would like it if you wrote to me of Alexandria and Boston and Manchester, how you remain a wife and widow while you are a mother now, and how you are Polly to Sophy Watson and me, Mrs. Foster to Patty and Mrs. H and the congregation at Grace Street, and Dr. Jed’s sweet Molly—how I blushed the day I heard him greet you so at the door and how you both laughed to see me, redder than a cranberry bog! Please send all my love to your family, from the greatest to the smallest, each in its proper measure (and then a little extra because that is Aunt Jo’s way).

Most fondly, most ginger-y, your friend,

Jo March Bhaer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To spare you the search, "Wirklich und wahrhaftig, meine liebchen" should translate to "Really and truly, my darling?" if the Google English to German translator has not done me wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Mary finds the time to write.

April 21, 1873

Dear Jo,

Oh my dear friend, I hope you will excuse me and allow me to forgo all the traditional greetings as Rebecca has had a fever these past few days—I cannot be sure how much time I will be able to devote to this letter without an interruption and I fear my thoughts and words may be a bit jumbled as I have been up in the nights more frequently than I had become accustomed to. Since I know you will kindly inquire, Rebecca is recovering without a visit from any physician save her father; though all are quick to say how she favors me in appearance, I see Jedediah’s temperament asserting itself in her and to watch the two together is generally cause for great amusement. She signaled her return to health by tugging quite fiercely on Jedediah’s beard as he held her and how quickly I had to run to them when I heard his cry coupled with her giddy little giggle at Papa! Still, she has required more attention this past week, at all hours, and I fear I will not write quite the letter you had hoped for.

I was most glad to receive your letter and even more pleased to read that you have been feeling a bit more at ease with yourself. You will have wanted me to laugh aloud at your announcement, but I was even more touched to hear how well your Fritz attends to you. How wise you were to marry him—I know it was not a state you imagined for yourself and I can see how you might have done as spinster Aunt Jo, the refuge of every niece and nephew, always ready with an ruddy apple or a boiled sweet, but I think your marriage is unearthing possibilities within you that could not have been easily predicted. A wife is more altered by her marriage than her husband; he remains himself within his chosen profession and among his social circle, possible elevated by a bride’s dowry, but able to remain independent personally, professionally, financially, and as I know you are well aware from our talks, legally in ways his wife is not. 

When a woman marries, she chooses not only her partner but her sphere. It is the rare wife who may breach the boundaries. That is why the choice of husband is so important, I believe, not only to a woman’s tender feelings, but her mind and soul; how hard for women who know themselves only a little or have no sage guidance from a parent to select the man who will support, enhance and relieve her! Your letter tells me how your husband has managed all three—and something else, a way of seeing within you that you have not mastered, an ability to juxtapose the interior and exterior worlds that he has gleaned from his study of philosophy, or perhaps, only from the study of his students, the grounding sense of the experienced professor. I am glad for you that you have such a man beside you and would suggest only that you reveal yourself to your gentle Fritz, by-and-by, that he might console and delight you even more.

But, that is not what you asked about in your letter, now is it? Jedediah would say I have taken on my Head Nurse’s tone again, leading my nurses in the agenda, rather than answering you as your friend Polly ought. You wondered how (and not if, clever, observant Jo!) I missed my hospital work and why. You wondered how I have traversed the path from Manchester to Boston, to Alexandria and back. I will try to answer—whatever I withhold will not be by choice, but because I have not understood myself yet. I have missed what first horrified me, the strangeness and chaos of that hospital, how much it needed to bring order and something that approached serenity, as much as anything could during the War. Familiar things and situations were distorted so they were nearly unrecognizable at times, but for that reason, compelling. My days are much more the same now than they were then, I am lapped in comfort, but the challenges that drive me to grow must come primarily from within myself. Jedediah is only my husband now and not my colleague and I admit, I have admitted to myself and to him, how much I miss working beside him and with him. Not because of the great affection I bear for him, the true love of a beloved wife—this is something that had little expression at that time, as propriety and our morals agreed, but due to the satisfaction of laboring with him as a friend and comrade (and, you will not be entirely surprised, arguing with him; some days it seemed that was all we would do!) We were as equal as we could be then, he the Executive Officer and I the Head Nurse, and now we may only draw on the memory of those years. I cannot be his wife and the mother of our children and still the Head Nurse at Sophy Watson’s freemen’s clinic or his ward at the Massachusetts General Hospital. 

It is not only the stimulation of that relationship that I miss. Nursing suited me well, the balance between necessary humility and competent direction and I must say, I found I flourished with the need to solve unpredictable problems than were not as tranquil as an equation or the design for next year’s calico or figured muslin. You might say I have done my best to replicate that chaos with the number of inquisitive and demanding children running about the house, but we both know the home is not a proxy for the hospital and as dear as Mrs. Hutchins and Patty and Cousin Esther are to me, they are not my friend Mr. Diggs, now a freemen’s physician in Columbus, kind Chaplain Hopkins, or Miss Green, though she is better called by her married name now. I find there are days when I am fretting with the monotony of caring for the children and keeping the house, when the solitary pursuit of mathematics or a French novel palls, when I feel such a pang missing my former nemesis, Nurse Anne Hastings, and her scabrous wit, her wicked tongue. Mansion House was dirty and mean, cruel and brutal, but it was also captivating, provocative, with moments of transcendance paired with utter dullness and it was of the larger world, more so than any one mill, Lycaeum lecture, or fine Bostonian gallery.

How long and short a road I have travelled from Manchester! It seems my childhood was all green and grey—the farm and its fields, the kitchen garden and the flowers my mother tended so assiduously, hollyhocks and lily-of-the-valley and bleeding hearts, and then the stone house, the team of grey horses, Taffy and Major, that took us to the town with its dusty roads and the tall mills. Granite would sparkle in the sunlight, edging the buildings, great slabs set as doorsteps. I have another gift of motherhood to share with you, Jo—your children will bring back your own childhood to you, more vivid than any dream. I see Daniel with his box of curious stones and I am looking into the brook behind the farm again, wishing a fish would disturb the pebbles. Timothy and Johnny are convinced they may tame a squirrel and learn to speak as it does and I recall the hours I spent fashioning a home of twigs and scraps of calico for the lame vixen I saw on the edge of the woods. I am little Mary again, my stockings torn but my hands clean enough to read my father’s books. I liked to sit on a little chest he had beside a window and draw the curtain around my shoulders like a cape while I read whatever I could manage. I did not think I could find a man to marry like the heroes I read about, nor someone who would accept my unwomanly interests, but more than anything, I have found life has exceeded the limits of my imagination and my greatest gift has been to accept that. (And haven’t I waxed poetical here? Manchester was also boiled turnips and mud-caked boots, winter's endless, nagging catarrh and mending mended sheets…)

And now, I have exceeded the limits of Rebecca’s patience and must beg your forgiveness for hastily ending this letter. She is operatic, as Jedediah can be, in voicing her displeasure, my little madam! and the boys are beginning their daily clamor for bread-and-butter and milk; Mrs. Hutchins turns a blind eye when Patty sprinkles every slice with brown sugar and within the hour, I will be supervising the washing of three faces, shining with butter and the discoveries of the day. I may return to your questions in the future, if you wish, or you may tell me how you are faring and Plumfield too, all that grows in its gardens, perhaps even how your own work progresses, whether you have added to your “Collection of Characters,” started during your first sojourn with me. Or you may weave me more of the fantasy of the summer seaside, that salt air and the warmth of the sun collecting under our bonnets’ brims, how I will dandle Rebecca on my knee and we will rest, knowing a splendid tea is being laid at the cottage and how deeply the boys will sleep, each with a shell in his hand. May God watch over you and all you love in His infinite wisdom and goodness, dear friend.

With greatest affection and sincere friendship,

Polly von Olnhausen Foster

Post-script  
Molly has said I might add a few words to you, Miss Jo, before she disappeared into the nursery. It’s quiet now, which means the boys are listening to her as she tells them a story before bed, Rebecca in her crib. I know how much good you did for my Molly when she was low and how fond she is of you but I don’t forget our own spirited squabbles and how you filled our household with gales of laughter. Let me only add my own blessings upon your delightful person and family and the suggestion you inform _Sehr geehrter Herr Professor_ that a woman with expectations must have her wishes gratified, whether you long for those infernal pickled limes or salt-cod fritters or the first rhubarb—he needn’t fear Rapunzel’s outcome. Avuncularly (you are the writer-- tell me, does the word pass muster?), Dr. Jed


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May Day from Jo.

May 1, 1873

Dear Polly,

What a true friend you are! I have so enjoyed reading and re-reading your letter. Dr. Jed will be glad to know I shared his post-script with Fritz who smiled broadly and since then has been veritably beseeching me to know what culinary oddity I am most desirous of. As usual, I have proven a frustrating obstacle as although my appetite is returning (and possibly exceeding its previous reasonable dimensions!), when I long for something, it is only fresh-baked buttered muffins or a simple bowl of porridge. I believe Fritz is prepared to scour all Massachusetts and send to New York City and its multiplicity of markets if he needs to secure me my heart’s desire, but for now, my own kitchen and young Mrs. Hummel’s handiwork have more than sufficed. I hope Rebecca has recovered entirely from her fever by now and that she and the rest of your family are finding these spring nights full of sweet air and dreams.

We have had such a May Day today with ribbons on the Maypole and May baskets delivered, with great ceremony and I suspect, compromised secrecy, to a variety of locations—one waited for me outside my bedroom door, festooned with its own green ribbons and filled to the brim with every kind of muffin. I ate the blueberry one with great dispatch and found it agreed so well, the next two followed it with alacrity. I had some say in the dispersal of said baskets, so Marmee and Meg, Amy and the Hummels, all will have found a bit of May bounty today. The children had such a good time and there was only one collision (Tommy Bangs, who else?) under the Maypole itself, treated easily with an extra sweet and a chamomile compress. The Maypole, for which we used a rather Spartan birch in the side garden, stands trailing its ribbons in the early moonlight, and I imagine there will be equally great pleasure found in the argument the children have about whether or not to leave the ribbons on the tree and if not, how to remove them. I also anticipate said removal would likely mean another great bump to Tommy Bangs’s cranium, so I am soaking some more chamomile, this time with a little lavender. I take comfort in the memory of Dr. Jed’s reassurance that day we hit our two heads in your front hall, each seeking to retrieve my fallen bonnet, and he’d said “Skulls were made for knocking, Miss Jo—Mr. Darwin would tell us that’s why there are such an enormous number of thick-headed people about.” I confess it sometimes seems quite unbelievable that the forces of evolutionary nature have all converged to create young Tommy Bangs, but I suppose I must also consider the divine animating Spirit and its incontrovertible sense of humor.

You asked for news of the family and I have been woeful in that respect previously, so I shall try to make amends here. The days of May sunshine appear to have wrought a final cure on my father’s lingering bronchial infection and he and Marmee are both much engrossed with their individual good works. Fritz and I have asked my father to give a private tutorial to Franz, our older nephew. Never have I met such an agreeable boy but we worry about him not getting his just due, and he asks for so little. I must say, he seems to share his uncle’s equable temperament and that is all, but we believe he may come into his own a bit with the individual lessons. He did seem to enjoy leaving Plumfield in his best coat and tie, vest neatly buttoned, and his bulging satchel slung over his shoulder; you would think he was due to meet Meriwether Lewis himself and start the westward expedition (though I cannot think who would play his Sacagawea—and now it occurs to me how much the children might learn and enjoy from a theatrical performance of that great adventure. I assure you, this is only my own harum-scarum approach to the edification of the young; Fritz is far more thoughtful and purposeful in devising the curriculum!). The other children have been much enamored of a gift Emil recently received from his other uncle, the German Mr. Hoffmann who sails the “briny deep” as Emil would proclaim. Gerhard most kindly sent Emil a ship in a bottle and the fascination has been colossal among our small students. Emil is understandably quite protective of his treasure and so we have had to institute a series of policies pertaining to the care and investigation of said bottle. There has also been a rage to try and recreate other such wonders, so that Plumfield is crammed in every cranny it seems with every size and shape bottle holding acorns, twigs, stones, and any other bit of flora they may acquire on the grounds. Franz did manage to fit two small pinned butterflies on a narrow twig into his wide-necked bottle, but none has yet accomplished anything truly architectural, nautical or vehicular.

Meg and her little family are faring well. She and John are such a self-assured pair, I imagine it would take an event of apocalyptic proportion to knock them off their pins. It makes for a very restful home but I always feel I am… wanting after I leave. I fear Plumfield shall never be as neat and cozy as Meg’s home, the denizens not nearly so well-kept and polite. I remember when as a girl Meg would moan and complain with me and some magical transformation much have accompanied her wedding vows, for since then, it seems she has never had a moment’s discontent. I wonder, Polly, I wonder if Meg wishes for something else and John as well. He is such a soft-spoken man, the finest brother I could imagine, but the passions that must stir his human heart are shrouded in mystery to me. He never speaks of his service during the War and when he does talk, if it is not some completely appropriate comment about his wife or children, he discusses only a few books, Montaigne and his ilk, which I frankly admit to you bore me silly (I am silly enough without the books to bore me, so you can only extrapolate the conversation’s effect upon me!). Their children are capable of a great deal of impish behavior and I sense we will all need to keep a close eye on my namesake, so I am reassured that they are not a household of saints and perhaps Meg does sometimes burn the dinner or forget to starch John’s collar.

I have finally told Amy my news. If Meg’s home is a simple and wholesome cottage, Amy’s is far in the other direction, an elegant edifice with a turret and back veranda set with stately columns. As I write this, I realize I have made her home sound like a sort of amalgamated monstrosity, but you must adjust the image my words suggest and see a house of gracious repose, symmetry and sophistication. Amy loved Vevey and the house has a very French feeling I think, the gardens manicured, everything as comme il faut as possible. Amy responded as I had thought, cool but loving and if a jealous light flickered into her blue eyes, we both ignored it. Our love of the arts has never been a sufficient bond to offset our myriad differences and I cannot envision being able to confide in her about my ambivalence about the child, nor Amy her presumed fears of never having a baby of her own. I am aware of three losses she has suffered, but there may be more and though we are sisters, I would not pry. She only said, “You and Friedrich must be very glad to be so blessed,” and of course, I nodded and sipped my tea. And then we spoke about her garden and Teddy’s plans for a hothouse and how dear little Daisy is. The following week, a beautifully wrapped package arrived with an infant’s dress all smocked and beribboned, a matching bonnet and a little card, carefully calligraphied “With love from Aunt Amy.” 

She must have told Teddy (as of course I would expect her to and hoped for—it hardly seemed fitting for me to try to find him alone to tell him, no matter how long we have been friends) for he has treated me with kid gloves since. Really, Polly, I had to do something, it was maddening so as he helped me into the carriage he insisted I take home the last time I called, I told him he needed to consider me just an ordinary wife, ordinary Jo and stop all the delicate condition nonsense. I must have startled him, for he exclaimed, “It’s just, I can’t imagine you a mother, Jo!” and then looked aghast, but then I retorted, “Well, Teddy, neither can I! Can you imagine my difficulties? At least we won’t have long to suffer, reality is coming soon enough, like a great freight train puffing into the station!” and he laughed until he wiped tears from his eyes. I saw then that he was happy for me and that his diffidence had been more to do with his picture of me as the hobbledehoy girl he grew up with, not the pangs of jealousy and fear I think beset Amy. 

You will ask about me and take me to task for forgoing any more personal report, so you may know Fritz looks after me very well and often seems to know my mood before I do. As you had suggested, time has helped my adjustment, even as I deal with this tremendous change every day. I have not yet needed to alter any dresses but I suspect that will no longer be the case in two or three weeks. I daresay I struggle least with my physical metamorphosis and I feel I can admit to you, dear Polly, I do feel a certain thrill of pride when Fritz regards me, his formerly angular Jo, all corners and crooks, so pleasantly round and plump. I am finally like the robust Frauleins of his home, albeit a Fraulein nevermore! We have decided to wait a few more weeks to tell Franz and Emil as I think September will seem an eternity to them though I often feel I will wake and find the harvest, all sorts, bearing down upon me!

You also asked, my dear friend who looks after me so well from afar, about my writing. I wish I had something more to say about it. I have found I have only to dip my pen in the ink if I am to write a letter to you or to Miss Watson and then the words tumble out over each other in their haste to be read. The children’s theatricals do not trouble me unduly—I seem well-suited to a sort of pediatric melodrama as the children as alternately rapt and convulsed with laughter when I read the plays aloud and clamor for their roles. As the performances are designed to be as bright and noisy as the dramatic personae, their clamor is easily managed. But as for my other work—there I am adrift. My novel seems to have lost its direction and I can’t quite discover what has gone wrong. My “collection of characters” has wanted for an addition for some time now, but having been so ill, I have gone about little and our callers have been few. There, at least, I do not fault my own lack of inspiration entirely. As for the little sheaf of poems, all but a few feel incomplete, but I cannot grasp again the composite sense of serenity and serendipity I began with, and nothing else seems to give rise to the lyrics. Have you ever struggled thus with your mathematical endeavors? I grant that yours are voyages of discovery rather than outright creativity, but it strikes me there are similarities. I should hate to think I am capable of only one sort of generativity at a time. I could be well-content with the idea that this baby only wishes its mother to write the boldest, giddiest dramas full of derring-do and piratical oratory as I should very much like to meet that child, but I suspect the fault lies only with me, fearfully bold and boldly fearful Jo.

In closing, I will allow my pen to call you the kindest and gentlest friend and to tell you once more how much I eagerly anticipate your letters, even with a saucy post-script from Dr. Jed. Tell me whatever I should know as I trust you know best what will soothe me or galvanize me, tell me what Daniel has been studying, if Timothy and Johnny have tamed Sir Squirrel, what happed to Taffy and Major, tell me of Polly (and Mary and Mrs. Foster if you will!).

As ever, I remain your irrepressibly admiring friend,

Jo March Bhaer


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary writes about her family and an unexpected visitor.

May 15, 1873

Dear Jo,

I hope that this letter finds you at least as well as you were when you last wrote and perhaps even better as the days lengthen and the spring progresses. Here in Boston, we have only our small garden, the thoroughfares with their trees like martial sentinels, none of the wildness of nature I knew growing up in New Hampshire. You write so vividly of your home and your school-- I envision Plumfield as a wide orchard, you and your Fritz the two greatest trees in the center and all the children butterflies and bees, flying and buzzing about, nurtured by the nectar of your flowers, sheltered by your branches, refreshed by the shadows that collect beneath your leaves. Dr. Jed and I admire so the work you are doing, the freedom you give the children to discover themselves while still impressing them with the moral values necessary to the development of healthy, ethical men and women. I have been a Head Nurse and he an Executive Officer, so we are able to appreciate the decisions you make, the planning and expectations that may suddenly be swept away, how difficult even the most rewarding work can be. I know this was not the direction you had imagined for your life, not what you had hoped and dreamed over, but you have not only accepted it but revel in the children so—I feel it can only be for the good of all, the children first but also to you and Fritz, each alone before God but also strengthening your young marriage.

You had asked so many questions I have not answered—where shall I start? I do not think I will be able to respond to them all within this letter as neither of us is prepared for such a volume as it would take me to write but I will make inroads, by-and-by. Daniel is much interested in the flora and fauna he can discover in Boston’s city and I am eager to see what he makes of the seaside this summer, how large a case for shells I must commission his father to procure. For now, he is contented with a scrapbook for his pressed flowers and their diagrams, his carefully written ruminations “on why the Stamen is so sticky but not sweet AT ALL” or “whether the Spider leaves tracks when it crawls across the rose’s Petals,” and a glass box for his butterflies which is largely empty as he cannot bear to pin any insect. I have suggested he try to draw his own renditions and we may pin those in the place of the actual butterflies we find in our garden. Timothy and Johnny continue in their quest and I can see that they are satisfied to plan their sorties and stratagems, prepare a princely nest filled with scraps from my rag-bag, a burlap sack that once held onions and still is somewhat redolent of the stewpot, a set of wooden spools that serve some elusive purpose neither can or will articulate. Jedediah has entertained himself keenly offering up explanations which the boys are quick to dismiss with a degree of exasperation I recognize from their father. That is another delight you may anticipate with your own child—the opportunity to discover what your Fritz was like as a small boy or even to see something of his manner, his mind within your own baby. Certainly, I was able to see much of Jedediah in the features and behavior of all of our children, all these different facets of him taken apart and reset, as a jewel may be.

You have written you trust me to tell you what you ought to know, what would benefit and inspire you but I think perhaps you overestimate my skill and competence. However, I will not let that stop me (as I can hear Jedediah remarking, Of course it will not! should he read this over my shoulder, as he is wont to do) and I will try, to the best of my ability, to regale you with an anecdote of recent occurrence I think may give you great pleasure. I had meant to answer more of your earlier questions but since I began writing this letter, we have had a visit, no, a visitation truly, that I must tell you of and hope you will agree I was right to do so.

Thursday last was such an ordinary day and I have become used to the pleasure and comfort of such ordinary days that I expect them; the Mary von Olnhausen of Mansion House would shake her head at me, but it is the way of people, I think, to become accustomed. Jedediah was busy with lectures in the morning but as the day promised to be fine, he had declared he would return home earlier than usual so he and the boys might embark on some obscure endeavor they have been discussing at bedtime before we enjoyed a walk on the Common as we so often try to do. The older boys trundled off to their school and Johnny and Rebecca alone required me. It was entirely typical that the afternoon encompassed muddy hands and sticky fingers, my dress a victim to many insults, all the benign injuries healthy children may inflict on silk taffeta, so I changed while they napped not because I prefer the formality of it, but because I would not have Jedediah return to such a slovenly wife. How glad I was that I had been so particular, so concerned that my husband would not find a slattern covered in soured milk, the crust of mud pies, an enormous streak of jam lacerating my apron for just as I was settling myself in the parlor, intending to read a little or work on a problem Professor Braislin of Vassar College had lately sent me (whom Professor Peirce had introduced me to in a flurry of very formal letters; perhaps that rigid politesse would diminish if ever I might meet my mathematical correspondent of Poughkeepsie and then one day we might be Mary and Priscilla as you and I are Polly and Jo), Mrs. Hutchins popped her head in to announce I had callers.

I was not so terribly surprised, for I had thought Mrs. Abbott or dear Sophy might call or even Mrs. Carlisle, a new neighbor whom I had called upon myself last week. I should perhaps have noticed the unusual look in Mrs. Hutchins’s eye, a mischievous twinkle little seen and thus little recognized by me, other than in retrospect. She ushered in my visitors and it was all I could do to greet them politely, offer to send for refreshments and bid them sit and converse. These conventions took several minutes, longer than you might expect, but the lady’s dress (patient, dear Jo—all will be revealed!) was quite the most elaborate concoction and required much settling of flounces and ribbons. We had only been seated a few minutes when Daniel and Timothy returned and burst in to the parlor but I turned my sternest gaze upon them and they managed to eke out the little bows and “How do you dos?” we have practiced before they begged leave and nearly flew from the room. A few minutes of pleasantries about the nature of the call and the state of our family ensued and then I heard Jedediah return home, calling quite boldly “Molly! Molly!” with no regard to callers, Rebecca’s nap, or my mathematics but I forgave him his exuberance quite easily, anticipating a little of what was to come. But not all, Jo, not all!

For as he made his way to the parlor, Jedediah was intercepted by Daniel; at first, I could only make out the overall tenor of the conversation, Jedediah’s interested, patient baritone, Daniel’s insistent piping soprano. As the parlor door opened, we could all clearly hear their remarks. Daniel cried, “Papa, she is! Mama is sitting with a man and a flamingo!” and Jedediah replied, “Daniel, don’t be silly, of course, Mama is not, you mustn’t make up stories.” But then he walked into the parlor and stood stock still at the entry, regarding the room. In a baritone echo of Daniel’s earlier exclamation, my dear husband cried out,

“Dear God! And Mr. Squivers!”

Oh, Jo, it was all I could do not to collapse with laughter! Jedediah’s face was the epitome of shock and surprise, the benign version triggered by the presence of the unexpectedly absurd and sartorially bizarre. For there, across from me, sat our former goggle-eyed medical cadet of Mansion House, Mr. Percival Squivers, and his new bride, Mrs. Percival Squivers, lately Dinah Mehitabel Washburn of Worcester, Massachusetts, one of the lesser Washburns as the lady herself put it. I wish you had been wish us, my dearest friend, for surely I am failing to convey the moment in its entirety and what an addition the happy couple would be to your “collection of characters!” 

I think you may recall our stories of Mr. Squivers, how willing his heart was but how inexperienced and ill-suited to the brutal vagaries of a war-time hospital, so much so that shortly after his arrival, he became not a valued assistant but a patient himself, albeit healthier than most. He did had a peculiar strength, uncommonly found—he was honest about his deficits and sincerely saddened to not be of greater service. I had only lately begun my work at Mansion House when he joined us, so I perhaps was more sympathetic to him than the rest and have since often thought, we do not fault a chair for not being a table, so why should poor Percival Squivers have been so derided? (For so he was, a true laughing-stock among the staff after his departure, a rare point of agreement.) All that said, I did not imagine I would be entertaining him and his new bride on a Thursday afternoon—for Jo, they were on their honeymoon trip and yet stopped to call! Dr. Squivers, to give him now his correct appellation, seemed not distressed in the slightest by Jedediah’s exclamation, and was quite eager to tell us of all that had transpired for him since last we had met. We sat in dumb silence, Dr. Jed and I, my husband too bemused and I too close to uncontained mirth, to risk uttering a word. It would have been wasted for Dr. Squivers and his bride were both quite… verbose. 

We discovered that Dr. Summers, the original chief medical officer of Mansion House, had arranged for Mr. Squivers’s transfer to his own old friend, Dr. Lloyd Wilbur of Hightstown, New Jersey, to apprentice in a setting better suited to Mr. Squivers’s sensibilities. From there, he made his way to Worcester where an accidental meeting—for it would always be an accident that led to any change for Percival Squivers—an accidental meeting with the young brother of the famed Ichabod Washburn helped Dr. Squivers establish a practice and meet his future bride. Dinah Squivers did indeed resemble a flamingo, her dress yards and yards of rosy-pink chiffon and sarcenet, ribbons strung through flounces also trimmed with lace and upon her head, the barest glimpse of pale brown hair was visible amidst the largest, most bedecked and furbelowed bonnet I have ever seen; it was a testament to her strength of spine if not character that she was capable to wearing such a bonnet and oh, to see her new husband beam upon her, besotted entirely! It is hard to assess a woman on her bridal tour, I think—she is so occupied with the transition to her new state and in this case, it would seem she was also much absorbed in the wearing of her trousseau but I cannot say Mrs. Squivers was ill-favored in any particular way but nothing was as notable about her as her ostentatiously rosaceous costume, save for a sweet smile she gave her husband now and then. I did, however, learn more than I could ever have imagined about the calibrated nuances of Worcester society, which she appears to have studied with the same passion her relative brought to his wire mill, the source of everything from piano wire to the hoopskirt’s cage (as I was also informed). Now I may envision my formal gowns more musical and my stumbling piano etudes a little more elegant, as perhaps, somehow, their contents were transposed in a moment of inattention on Grove Street.

Mrs. Hutchins and Patty brought in refreshments carefully calibrated to the duration of a shorter call, bless them, and within a half an hour, it seemed the barrage of information about Worcester and their tour was nearly at an end. I must own I was a little ashamed at how relieved I was when I felt we would be quit of them both, how I longed to discuss the visit with Jedediah, when Dr. Squivers turned to me and said, quite earnestly,

“Nurse Mary, rather, Mrs. Foster, I must thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you did for me during the War even though I spent only a few days in your company. I have never forgotten your kindness and patience with me and from the moment I left Mansion House, I redoubled my efforts to be a physician worthy enough to call upon you as we have today. I beg your pardon, Dr. Foster—you always seemed so removed from me, so experienced and brilliant, I could never begin to attain your level, but Nurse Ma-, Mrs. Foster made me believe I might be of service, I might find a way to serve and treat my patients wherever they were, with respect and diligence and humility. I have often spoken of you thus to Di—Mrs. Squivers, and that was why she insisted we try to call, although I suspect I, we have once again been an inconvenience to you both.”

I had been about to demur, but Mrs. Squivers interrupted, and said,

“Oh, Mrs. Foster, it’s entirely true! Dr. Squivers speaks of you so highly and so often, I felt I already knew you. And to meet you, I see how right he was though I do think perhaps we have disturbed your family more than we anticipated. We had not imagined your household would have, would be blessed with so many children. So many lively children.”

Just at that moment, Rebecca howled and the sound echoed throughout the house; Jedediah and I were familiar with the meaning of it, Rebecca was only lonely and a hungry after her nap, but the sound galvanized the Squiverses as if it were a cannon-shot and they both leapt to their feet. If Dr. Squivers had already donned his tall beaver hat, it certainly would have been toppled to the floor. With a degree of efficiency I would not have expected from either of them, the bridal couple made their farewells complete with the requisite invitation to call upon them in their new home on Plantation Street and departed; Mrs. Squivers’s dress trailing like the scatter of cherry blossoms, or as Daniel had imagined, the shed fluff of flamingo down. 

Oh Jo, Jedediah and I looked at each other then and it was a new look that we’d never before had the opportunity or reason to exchange and finally we both burst out with the laughter we’d worked so hard to contain—not the cruel laughter of mockery, but of surprise and delight and the utter preposterousness of the Squiverses arrival, appearance and explanation, a series of answers to questions we hadn’t realized we wanted to ask. The juxtaposition of Dr. Squivers’s poignant gratitude and emerging dignity and his wife’s nearly confectionery candy-floss dress and copious exposition about Worcester and piano wire, her sweet, little wifely smile which she clearly had never once needed to conceal, as I did for so many long months— it all made the event extraordinary in the clearest and deepest meaning of the word. Jedediah laughed so hard he wiped tears from his eyes and my own gales of laughter (Jedediah had intercepted this and insists I clarify that phrase should more accurately read “gales of giggles”) drew the boys to the parlor to regard their parents with the fascination that only Sir Squirrel and Mr. Audobon’s book of birds usually invoke. We have enjoyed recounting the tale to each other and all its wonderful little details these past several days and I sincerely hope my retelling within this letter has allowed you to share in the general cheer and chuckling the visit itself brought. In truth, I look forward to writing a short note to Mrs. Squivers to thank her for the call and it see what response arrives; it will perhaps be perfumed, beribboned and sealed with colored wax, a far cry from my own spare letters, which are adorned only with ink and a few errant blots.

I will end with a small suggestion which you most certainly may disregard as I know little of the artist’s process but you had mentioned earlier how you have struggled with your writing though it never seems to me that you lack inspiration when I read your exuberant letters. I was struck by what Dr. Squivers said, about how I had helped him and I reflected that he had, in turn, helped me feel more secure as Head Nurse, more competent and confident-- how even an unexpected pairing may yield something worthy, even precious. It occurred to me with your taste for the theater, perhaps you would make more progress with your poetry if you sought to write lyrics, as for an aria or operetta, and had already the melody at hand. Perhaps a composition of Mr. Laurence’s? For I know he remains a great favorite of yours and I suspect he might know without thinking how to find a tune that needs only your words to be complete. It is not so similar in mathematics, there we pace each other or pass over this equation or that to our comrade, hoping their eyes might see something we are blind to, their mind might find the seam that leads to the halves’ equal, perfect parting.

I admit I am a bit disappointed, re-reading my letter before I finish it, that I have not been able to better convey the degree of amused delight the Squiverses brought us—I had so hoped to give you a true reflection of the experience, but I feel my skill with words is not what I would wish. I have thought of what your own letter to me would have been and how I would have surely laughed till the tears streamed down my face and the children grew nervous; Jedediah would have recognized what was happening and would have demanded the letter for his own perusal. Still, I imagine you will be very kind and complimentary and I have comforted myself with the knowledge that I have given you a bit of diversion from your regular rounds as headmistress and wife. I send love to you and your dear family and may God bless Plumfield and all its denizens. If a review of your latest theatrical, either your own or a younger critic’s work, were to be included in your next letter, we would all be the better for it here, and I will try to answer all the other questions you have put to me in future correspondence. I have enclosed a small drawing Daniel has made of a frog he spied along the Charles—here, unlike my attempt to relate our visits, the stasis of rendition is best, the slippery frog who cannot leap from the page a relief, not a source of dismay.

With greatest affection and sincere friendship,

Polly von Olnhausen Foster


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A final letter before the summer.

June 11, 1873

Dear Polly,

You will, of course, forgive the unforgivable— ~~the~~ my hopeless delay in replying to your last letter, which was such an inexpressible delight that I must now spend a little time attempting to express it; I am sure I will fail more notably at that than you suspected you had done in your recounting of the Arrival of the Squivers (I have capitalized where I see fit, as the episode appears to call for that degree of grandness or at least a near Chaucerian disregard for modern grammar given the wonderful details of their characters and general progress on a Bridal Pilgrimage.) Oh Polly, how much laughter your letter brought to Plumfield! Fritz nearly burst into our room in a terror at my first, sudden eruption and truly, I could only pass him the letter for him to read himself, I was so done up. He reads English as well as German (and Latin, Greek, French and Italian, my learned professor!) but humor does not always translate—yet you had done such a brilliant job at conveying the scene, the absurdity seen with your gentle, compassionate eye so that neither of us felt we were mocking the young couple, you, Dr. Jed or your baffled children. Fritz kept exclaiming “a flamingo!” and had a gleam in his eye that makes me wonder whether he will find a way to importune you to send us your children for students—he is quite persuasive and you will be at his mercy at the seaside for at least a few days, dear friend, so consider yourself duly warned. I thought you would not mind, so I brought the letter to Orchard House after church and I cannot remember the last time Marmee chuckled so she wiped away tears and solemn John Brooke grinned like the young tutor I remembered, before the War and family life made him so kindly, understandably serious. 

There was only one party who found anything lacking with your letter and that was Emil, who disagreed vehemently about Daniel’s frog and stated he would very much have preferred the live specimen though he was at pains to devise a plan wherein you might have transported said frog via the post so that it would arrive as if it were fresh from the Charles. You will not be surprised to learn that he has redoubled his own efforts to secure a similar creature, though I don’t think he’ll be content to simply draw his and this may require some negotiation about the appropriateness of removing Admiral Frog from his watery abode. Fortunately, invoking the rules of the high seas generally serves to derail Emil from even his most firmly held beliefs about the need for a frog, an extra serving of baked custard or the silliness of brushing his hair “the wind will only blow it about, especially on the briny deep, where I’m meant to be, Aunt Jo, so I shouldn’t bother to make habits I won’t keep.” It was quite difficult for me to challenge him as I recall my own similar arguments to my mother, but I persevered, as soon enough there will be a third treble voice actively disputing some incomprehensible adult directive and I must make ready for the battle. Emil is a worthy foe but prone to giggles which I have used to outflank him on more than one occasion.

I’m afraid this letter will be quite higgledy-piggledy, a mad jumble of my errant thoughts, answers to your questions and news of the family. It required some more careful discussion, but Fritz and I have finally made a firm plan for when we may join you at the seaside this summer, though I imagine I will wish to have swum, accompanied by friendly dolphins, rather than travel by hired carriage if my current dimensions are any prediction of the future; I fear they are, that I will be one of those women people gasp to see and then offer me pitying glances, an infinity of condoling pats administered to my gloved hand and “you poor dear!” a constant refrain. Soon enough, I feel I will require Archimedes’s largest lever to shift me from any chair at Plumfield, even the hardest, most unsparing oak. Fritz seems to find me adorable as I wobble about and my appetite appears to have returned from its sojourn to a distant land with reinforcements; I make the most of all our regular meals but require twice as many of them and have taken to keeping a basket of apples beside the bed. Fritz brings a fresh jug of milk each night and beams at me when he returns it empty to the kitchen in the morning. I have forbidden him from calling me “ _Mäuschen_ ” as it is quite, quite preposterous. He is the proud papa already, with many gentle pats for my alarmingly animated belly as the baby quickened several weeks ago but is now tangible to its father without as it has been to its mother from within. Are all babies thus? I can’t help wondering if the kicks are like the messages of the prisoners of the Bastille or whether I am meant to know only that it is terribly crowded already. I know little about babies, but I expect this is a question for which there is no answer; sometimes, Polly, I think those are the best kind.

We have told Franz and Emil and they appear pleased with the news of a new baby, though Emil may think the baby will emerge ready to be a cabin boy on the vessel Emil plans to captain. Franz is such a dear boy, he made sure to add the baby to his prayers right away and to find me alone and tell me how much he can be a help, fetching things for me and generally minding the baby “for I have done so with Emil and I don’t think he’s turned out very badly, do you, Aunt Jo?” We have begun to make a little nursery just next to our room and Meg has given us Josie’s crib as she has no need of it. I expect a few pictures hung on the walls and new curtains and we will only await the nursery’s inhabitant, with varying degrees of impatience. Unless there is some other necessity you would suggest but I really can’t think what it would be. 

There is no other great news of the extended March family to relay, save that some of my father’s sermons are being collected into a book, which he is quietly pleased about, and Demi has started his own newspaper at Plumfield, the Plumfield Gazette, and the articles are simply killing. One headline read “Why do the gnats swim in the Honey-pot?” while another was “Bangs victorious against stone” which references Tommy Bangs’s stubbing his toe in the garden. We are hoping each edition proves an improvement on the previous one. This journalistic endeavor has overtaken the theater as the main focus but I imagine there will be a critic’s review in the next Gazette of the next dramatic presentation and that I will send you a copy of, direct.

I believe it will be only a few short weeks before we meet at the shore and any letters sent hence will cross paths and end up waiting in our front halls for our sandy, sunburned, happily exhausted return. However, I must share with you the product of your suggestion that I collaborate with Teddy; it is not quite the aria or operetta you had imagined, but I think Teddy has surpassed himself in writing a melody full of the fresh charm of a Scotch air with a little of our American folk song and some ineffable Italian quality that makes me think of golden oranges or the silvery shudder of olive leaves. I have enclosed the sheet music to go with the lyric so that you may play the song yourself if you are inclined. Teddy was very much surprised when I asked him but so glad and what fun we had, each working furiously in our own studios, then coming together to argue over what we had and how it fit together-- in so many ways like the best of what I recall from our childhood, before romance and its attendant complexities created a shadow between us. I must thank you, Polly, for your inspired idea, for it has not only lead to a resurgence within my creative soul, but has found a way to bind together two good friends who had lost their way, and with the beaming approval of the rest of the tribe. Perhaps I shall have an aria to show you at the shore, if Fritz consents to play translator for us, and if Teddy and I manage to unravel the latest tangle we have begun, but I will part now with my dearest regards to you and my hope for safe travels for the entire family. You may tell Dr. Jed that this summer, I mean only to consume lobster(s?), and not to resemble one!

With my greatest, most exuberant affection,  
Jo March Bhaer

 

The Willow and the Rose

The willow stands beside the brook,  
The ruddy rose among her kin.  
The willow loves the water’s music,  
The rose prefers bees’ mandolin.

The willow is a home to swallows,  
The rose has desperate thorns.  
They greet each other very gladly  
On gold and silver morns.

The rose may wish for willow’s withies  
The willow for perfume sweet.  
The butterfly visits each in turn,  
Counts no lack where she does meet.

Refrain:   
The willow and the rose,  
The willow and the rose,  
The conversation of the bee,  
Where’er the burnished fellow goes.

Post-scriptum: I send you thanks, a thousand times over, Mrs. Foster, for what you have done for my Josephine these past months and I look forward to telling you again when we meet and also conducting an interview with your young Daniel, who seems to be a most inquisitive and philosophical fellow. I will brace myself for Dr. Foster’s ready wit as you must for Emil’s infinite questions about the sea—FGB.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I needed to mix it up for myself a little and I decided it would be fun to return to my Mercy March universe and Jo March Bhaer & Mary's correspondence seemed a wonderful place to be. Louise May Alcott never wanted Jo's character to get married and I think a lot of readers have struggled with Friedrich Bhaer but I wanted to see what I could do with a truly grown-up view of their relationship and of course I think Mary/Jed make a great foil. Mary and Jo have so much in common but are still such different women. And I also want to try and reframe Meg Brooke's character because I think she gets short shrift as well. I'm not sure just how many chapters there will be in this one and I imagine other stories which precede it which I haven't yet written so I have to be careful about how I write the letters...
> 
> The title of the story is from Jane Austen.  
> Charles Dickens died in 1870 and The Mystery of Edwin Drood was his last book, published unfinished.


End file.
